The communicator is ripped from my hands and I follow it with my eyes as it’s passed to someone who’s just walked up.
“I’m sorry, Skylar. AIRIA is no longer under your control. She belongs to me now.”
The words hit me like a Mack truck. No, no that’s not possible. AIRIA’s mine! She’s my mom and my dad and all I have left of them. No one can take her from me! Who the frack does this guy think he is?
I lift my eyes from the unresponsive communicator in his hands up to his face and stagger back a step.
“Uncle Bill?”
He’s older and his face is harder than I remember, but it’s him.
He gives a sharp nod. “Hello, Skylar. I was sorry to hear that your father is no longer with us. He would understand what will happen now. I’ve brought my people to take back what I loaned him so long ago. AIRIA is now under my complete control. Your authorization has been reduced to a red level but you don’t have to worry, I will continue to shelter you for the sake of my friendship with your father. You just won’t have any more authority in my bunker.”
I should be happy to have a small part of my family show up but I don’t know this man. All I know is that he’s just taken away the only real parent I have left. He can’t seriously just cut me off from her like that. Can he?
I’m not going to get an answer from him now because he nods at the guy holding me and motions towards a Hummer that’s pulled up on the other side of the car barricade. The guy doesn’t shove me towards it but his grip on my shoulders is forceful so I have no choice but to move toward it. I struggle against him, trying to see what these invading soldiers are doing with my friends. That’s what they are, invaders and no matter who that man was once, I have a feeling in my gut that he’s now going to be my biggest enemy. I manage to catch a glimpse of Rex, Lance, and the others being hauled to their feet with their hands tied in front of them before we make it to the car barricade. As I scramble over the hoods of the double rows of cars between me and the Hummer, I turn my body sideways so I can watch my people being herded towards some kind of troop transport that had breached the barrier. The fight goes out of me when I see them being loaded into it. If these soldiers were going to kill them they would have done it here, where countless bodies litter the parking lot.
I wait docilely for the soldier to open the Hummer’s door and climb in without a word. Uncle Bill stated that the bunker is his now so that must be where we’re headed. That works for me, Benny is there and the sooner I have my hands on him the better. I’m surprised to see two other people in the back seat with me. A boy and girl that are both around my age stare at me as the door slams closed, sealing me inside with them. I don’t know who they are but they both wear the same uniforms as the other soldiers so I dismiss them and turn to look back out the window to try and catch another look at my friends.
“Skylar? Do you remember me?”
My head swings back to the boy who has spoken. Who is this guy and how does he know my name? I just stare him down and wait to see what he wants from me.
“Uh, I’m Jackson…Bill’s son.”
I squint my eyes to see if I can see anything of the boy I had met once before long ago at a ruined birthday party but there’s nothing, so I slide my gaze past him to the girl who’s scanning me with a creepy amount of interest. I look back to Jackson for a half a beat and shake my head before turning my back on both of them with a parting shot.
“Sure, ruining parties seems to be your thing.”
He stammers out a few words of apology but I just tune him out and study the soldiers running around the parking lot collecting weapons off of dead bodies. The flames from the hotel have caught in all three wings, turning night into day, so I see the transport truck my friends were loaded on move out. I wish Uncle Bill would hurry up. I have a lot of questions for him and I want AIRIA back!
When I hear the driver’s side door open I look over with impatience but it’s just some random soldier who fires up the vehicle and pulls away. I guess I’ll have to wait for my answers. Jackson tries talking to me again but I just hold my hand up between us. I have no interest in speaking to this boy until I have hashed things out with his father.
As we leave town, I catch sight of the road where we had left my dad’s truck before we snuck into town. I wonder if these guys have found it or if it will stay down there, hidden.
I let my mind drift to all that’s happened in the last few months after going so many years with just me and Ben and the same old routine. We went from so many years alone to being surrounded by people and finally finding the ability to trust again and make plans to for the future to now being invaded by soldiers and not knowing anything about what is in store for us. I can only hope that Uncle Bill has plans to work with us on our plans to start rebuilding and planting crops. Depending on how many soldiers he has with him, we could get a lot accomplished.
All thoughts of working together leave my mind as the girl lets out a soft gasp. I turn to look out the windshield and gasp myself. There are floodlights set up all around the clearing where Rex’s people had camped before I let them into the bunker. But what sends my blood racing is the lines of people on their knees with their hands behind their heads. It has to be every single person from the bunker out there on the ground as men with guns guard them. I look in every direction ahead and see fences being unrolled around the edges of the clearing and huge tents being erected against the rock wall. What the frack is going on?
As soon as we come to a stop behind the transport ahead of us I claw at the handle of my door and let out a screech of frustration when I find it locked. My furious eyes swing to Jackson causing him to lean away from me as I hash out the order through my grit teeth.
“OPEN...THE…DOOR!”
He leans back further practically laying on the girl beside him. It’s her that nods to me before addressing the driver.
“Private! Unlock the doors, please. Miss Ross would like to reunite with her little brother.”
I pin the girl with a hard stare. How the frack does she know that? How does she know anything about me? She just gives me another nod at the sound of the locks clicking open so I spin away and throw the door open. I’m halfway across the clearing scanning faces of the people on their knees when I give up and start screaming his name. I hear his small scared voice call my name and zero in on the area it came from. I only manage a few more feet towards him when a gunshot rings out and a divot of dirt goes flying into the air right in front of me. I throw myself to the left and drop to the ground as screams fill the air from the scared people in front of me.
There’s so much noise as people scream and soldiers shout but no more bullets fly so I roll over, push myself to my feet, and look behind me. I see Jackson pull a rifle away from an angry soldier as the girl barks orders to stand down at the others. I push myself to my feet and just stare at them all in disbelief. Why would they shoot at me? What threat am I to them that they would shoot so randomly at a girl looking for her brother?
I feel a small body crash into me and it almost sends me back to the ground again but I manage to brace myself enough to stay on my feet.
“Sky…Skylar! They yelled at us and made us all leave and said we can’t live inside anymore cause it’s theirs now! They’re all really mean! AIRIA…AIRIA won’t even talk to me anymore and the ceiling, the ceiling out here is too big!” He sobs against my side as I wrap my arms around him.
I hold him close as I turn in a circle and see Belle and Matty starting to rise up as well as all the other people who had flattened themselves to the ground when the shot went off. I keep turning and see Rex, Sasha, Lance, Ethan, and Marsh being shoved our way. Then I see Jackson and the girl a few steps away from me. Jackson looks like he’s ready to apologize again but the girl just looks grim. When I see Uncle Bill stride up to join them, I feel the fury boiling up until it spews out.
“What the FRACK is wrong with you? Lining up women and children on their knees and shooting at t
hem? What are you, some kind of MONSTER?”
He glares back at me but doesn’t bother responding. I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and glance that way to see the girl slowly nodding her head as if to say, “Yes, he is.”
Interlude One
AIRIA EAST
Seven Years Ago
Jackson
“I can’t believe we’re stuck here! We could be at the pool right now. I hate year-round school!”
I catch the small ball I’m bouncing against the opposite wall of the hallway we’re sitting in and glance over at Joslin to see if she agrees but her black curls act as a wall, covering her face while her small fingers fly over the tablet’s keyboard. I nudge her with my shoulder causing her to whip her hair away from her face as she shoots me an impatient look.
“It is what it is. Get over it! I just need a few more minutes and I’ll be into their network, then we can snoop around.”
I let out a sigh as she turns back to the code that’s flashing over her screen. I know she’ll ignore me now until she hacks into the network here. She sees every private network as a personal challenge to her hacking skills and this one being military is the big shiny golden ring.
I lean past her to look down the hall to see if any of my classmates are moving but everyone is still sitting in boredom along the walls as we wait for my dad to show up and give the class a tour of the base. As far as school field trips go, this is one of the worst as far as I’m concerned. It’s bad enough dealing with my father on his scheduled visitation weekends without Mom there as a buffer, but now I have no choice but to listen to him all day droning on about how military discipline is the be-all and end-all of success. I decided a long time ago that military life wasn’t for me, especially if it turns people into the hard-ass my dad is.
I throw the ball again and again and chew on my lip. I know if Dad has his way that in two years I’ll be sent to a military school and the choice will be taken from me. I shudder at the thought of that and vow to keep working on Mom to stop that from happening. I fumble the next catch when Joss hisses.
“Yes! I did…WOAH!”
I crawl over to retrieve the ball and settle back beside her but the weird look on her face has me glancing down at the screen of the tablet she’s clutching. There’s an angry red banner flashing on it.
“Oh! Did you get busted?”
“What…no. I just broke into their Wi-Fi, I didn’t steal nuclear launch codes!” she says with a shake of her head.
I laugh. “I’m pretty sure that we don’t have anything nuclear in this country.”
She gives me a flat look. “You know what I mean. I don’t know what’s going on. Something weird is happening though.”
I look down the hall at my bored classmates and see my teacher Ms. Hudson tapping her foot in impatience while glancing repeatedly at her watch. My dad, who’s always a stickler for being on time, is late. That alone tells me that something’s going on. This part of the base is where the public would come to sit in for lectures or wander through the displays that they have on the history of Canadian military so there’s no one around for me to ask what’s going on. I laugh to myself. Maybe I’ll get lucky and I won’t have to spend the next hour listening to my father tell everyone in my class how amazing it is to be a soldier and it’s the one thing of importance that everyone should do in their life.
I’m just about to start throwing my ball again when a door slams open at the end of the hallway, catching my attention. I can just see a flashing red light before the door slams behind my father who is striding towards my teacher. He gives her an annoyed look as she rushes towards him before glancing down the hallway at my fellow classmates and then zeroing in on me. He holds his hand up towards my teacher to stop her chatter and barks my name.
“Jackson, front-and-center!”
I scramble to my feet and pull Joss up with me, maybe he won’t ream me out if I have an audience. Just as we reach him, I hear him telling Mrs. Hudson that the lecture will be delayed and that she should put all of my classmates in the lecture hall where he will join them shortly. He holds me back when I move to join my classmates and waits until they’ve all left the hallway before he turns to me with a stern look.
“Come with me. Something’s happened and I need you to follow me right now!”
I glanced over at Joss but she looks just as unsure as I feel. She starts to edge towards the door to the lecture room so I reached out and grab her arm and hold her close. I don’t want to face whatever my father has in store for me alone.
My father gives her an annoyed look when she stays by my side and barks at her. “Go with the rest of your classmates. This doesn’t concern you!”
I hold tight to her arm and shake my head in denial. For once I’m going to defy him.
“No! She’s staying with me. She’s my best friend and I’m not going anywhere without her.”
His face turns beet red in anger but before he can bark at us again, a soldier runs up to him and says in an urgent tone, “General, we have to go!”
My father turns back to us and throws up his hands. “Fine, bring her but you both need to keep up and do as you’re told.”
We rush to follow my father and his aide deeper into the base through twisting and turning corridors that flash with the red emergency lights on the ceilings. We finally make it to the end of a long corridor where a double set of elevators doors wait open for us. As soon as the doors close I turn to my father and ask what’s going on and why are the red lights flashing? I can see he’s about to dismiss me once again so I ask again in my bravest voice.
“Dad, what’s going on?”
He looks at me and then to Joss before finally sighing in annoyance.
“There’s been some troubling developments. Nuclear bombs have been launched in the Middle East and Europe and we’re expecting them to start heading our way shortly. We have a contingency plan for this sort of thing and we’re heading there now.”
My mouth drops open in shock and I stutter out, “Bombs? Nuclear bombs? We’re going to be bombed?”
He nods his head yes. “I expect the bombs to hit North America within the next hour. We have an underground bunker that we’re going to travel to where we will all be safe but I need you to listen to me and follow my exact orders. I’m not kidding Jackson, you must do exactly as you’re told. This is serious!”
I can only nod my head in stunned belief but then an even scarier thought races through my mind.
“Dad! What about Mom? Is Mom coming? Did you call her? We have to get Mom. She has to come and be safe with us!”
His face goes completely blank at my panicked questions before he finally responses with a tiny shake of his head.
“I’m afraid she’s too far away Jackson. She would never make it here in time. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do to help her.”
I can hear Joss gasp out a sob beside me as she realizes that her own parents will be left out in danger as well. I step back away from my dad in the cramped space and glare at him.
“Let me go. Let us go. We want to go! We want to go back to Mom and to Joss’ parents. We don’t want to be here with you!”
He looks at me with disdain and shakes his head. “That’s not going to happen. You will be with me now and you’re both going to have to toughen up. This IS reality! It isn’t going to be for the next week or even the next month. Only the strong will survive what’s about to happen and what the world will be like in the years to come. You both need to accept that this is happening whether you want it to or not!”
I angrily scrape the tears from my face before spitting at him. “You didn’t even call, did you? You didn’t even warn her what’s coming! You’re just going to leave her out there to die!”
My father is saved from answering me when the doors behind us open and he pushes both Joss and I out onto a concrete platform with an underground train parked beside it. I’m distracted by the lines of soldiers that are calmly entering the doors
down the length of the train and settling in the seats. I shake my head in amazement as my grip tightens on Joss’ hand. I had no idea there was a train underneath my father’s base.
I’m scared and all I want to do is run with Joss back to the elevators and up to the ground level so that we can try and get to our families before the bombs start dropping. Sadly, that’s not going to happen as my father hands us off to his aide who pushes us into the train and down into a seat. As soon as we’re seated Joss yanks her hand from mine and pulls out her tablet. Her little fingers start flying over the keyboard faster than I’ve ever seen them move before.
I watch the soldiers filling up the seats on either side of us in stunned disbelief for a few minutes before I turn my attention to what Joss is doing. I can see that she has her email open and is typing out a message.
Without looking up she asks, “Would your mom know where this bunker is?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know, she might. He might have told her about it before they divorced.”
She just gives me a curt nod and continues typing before she finally hits the send button.
The determined expression that had been on her face leeches away as she slumps back against her seat and her lower lip starts to tremble. She’s back to being a scared ten-year-old girl instead of the fierce hacker she wants to grow up to be.
“What did you do?” I ask her in a small voice.
She lets out a trembling breath and swipes her hand underneath her damp nose.
“I still had a weak Wi-Fi signal down here so I managed to get a message out to my mom telling her what’s going on and asking her to contact your mom so that they can know where we are. I don’t know if they’ll get it in time but at least I got to say goodbye. I’m sorry I couldn’t send one to your mom. I don’t know what her email is.”
She looks down the length of the train car at all the serious looking soldiers and asks in a defeated voice, “Where do you think they’re taking us? And why couldn’t he bring the rest of the class with us? There’s got to be room for them on this train? Do you really think he just left them up there to die when the bombs drop on us?”
Endless Winter Box Set: Books 1 - 4 Page 35
